Sometimes news comes along that\'s hard to report, and important not to miss.

They tend to be the human elements of the industry.

Mark VanDeVelde, a Vice President at Crave Entertainment and an industry veteran, passed away last Saturday, February 18th. The memorial service will be held today, and a scholarship fund has been established for Mark\'s 11-year-old daughter. We encourage you to contribute to it.

While the chance is small that this news will impact the average gamer on a day-to-day level, sometimes we have to care simply because we know that someone else is fundamentally affected by such changes. It says something about Crave Entertainment, and Mark VanDeVelde, that they felt it was important to share the loss, and our condolences go to Mark\'s family.

We are genuinely saddened for you, and we can only imagine how difficult a time this must be. You have our best.

Below you\'ll find Crave\'s official press release, including information about how to donate to the scholarship fund:

\"We are saddened to report to you that Mark \"Chip\" VanDeVelde, a vice president with our company, passed away on Saturday, February 18th, 2006. Many of you may have known Chip, who was a long time industry veteran. Chip was part of the SVG Distribution / Crave Entertainment family since 1998 and was the national sales manager for Konami before joining our company.

Visitation will be held at the McDonald-Allen-Grennan Funeral Home on Thursday, February 23rd from 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. and the Funeral service will be held on Friday, February 24th - 10:00 a.m. at St. Mary\'s Catholic Church.

SVG Distribution / Crave Entertainment will be starting a scholarship fund for Chip\'s daughter Callahan who is 11 years old. We would appreciate it if you could post the following notice about this scholarship fund in the news section of your website and pass the information to your friends and colleagues. Here is the information regarding the fund: